Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter playing on the same team would have been incredible to watch. But while that never happened during their long NBA careers, Kobe and Vince used to play together when they were much younger.
Lower Merion High phenom Bryant and Mainland High School star Carter were teammates in AAU basketball. And with the two sharing the same backcourt, they played on some of the best teams ever, including what Kobe said was the GOAT AAU squad.
"We played in the greatest AAU team of all time," once declared Kobe. "We did. We played together. It was. It was the greatest AAU team ever. I mean, we were smashing people by 60, 70 points…Vince was a year ahead of me. I remember the height that this guy can elevate off the ground was just unbelievable. And he was the No.1 shooting guard in that class. And I was coming up behind him."
The greatest AAU team ever assembled?
Kobe was talking about the 1994 New Jersey Patterson AAU team. That team had Kobe, Vince, Tim Thomas , Rip Hamilton , and Kevin Freeman. But that team didn't belong to Kobe or Vince. It was Thomas who was the main star of that squad.
Tim was born in Patterson and he was the No.1 player in the country back then. So, more than Kobe and Vince having Thomas, Hamilton, and Freeman as supporting cast, it was Thomas' team, and the four of them joined him in Patterson.
"I had no real thought that Rip (Hamilton) would come up from Philly to play with me, a guy from Florida in Vince Carter would come up to Jersey to play with me. A guy by the name of Kobe Bryant would come to Jersey to play with me," Thomas said on the All the Smoke podcast .
Tim Thomas denies Rip Hamilton's Kobe story
Interestingly, the Patterson AAU team was no more after 1994. Because Thomas got bored with dominating the basketball scene as the best prep player in the U.S., he shifted to baseball during his junior year. At the same time, Kobe and Vince went to play for their Philly AAU squad. More interestingly, Patterson and the Philly team met in the championship game.
That title game was the one where Hamilton says Kobe began displaying the 'Mamba Mentality'. Because Thomas was the top dog in the nation, Rip says Kobe had him on top of his 'kill list'. And on the night before the game, Bryant allegedly told Hamilton he was going to Kill Thomas. Tim refuted that story , saying that while Kobe outscored him in that game, it was because he arrived one quarter late and Kobe already had 15 or 20 points.
Bryant went on to be the most successful player on that team. He and Rip were the only ones to win an NBA championship. Kobe and Vince ended up in the Hall of Fame. But with four players picked in the lottery, you can easily argue that the '94 Patterson team was indeed the best AAU team ever.
Related: "I turned to my assistant coaches and said this kid is a pro" - Kobe Bryant’s high school coach recalls when he knew Kobe was bound for stardom
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